Birds and photographers flock to Ningxia's new wetlands

YINCHUAN－Every day, when Gu Jincheng takes a stroll with his grandson in the Yellow River Wetland Park in Hetan village in Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, he's gratified by its drastic change in recent years from smelly quagmire to outdoor oxygen bar.

It has also become a shelter for migratory birds, something few could have imagined less than a decade ago, when the park was no more than a stretch of salty land on the river flat, with hardly any grass and raw sewage pouring out of nearby drains.

"The water stank, and was full of dirty bubbles. Even animals wouldn't drink from it. Crops irrigated with its water withered after," Gu recalled, adding that the river made his hometown of Hetan smell unpleasantly.